This is the Introduction to Political Ideologies for the old exam. The Specification (syllabus) says:

LiberalismKey concepts:

individualism

freedom

justice

rationalism

equality

liberal democracy

constitutionalism

consent

Content explanation

A knowledge of core ideas, doctrines and theories of liberal ideology, particularly as they affect liberal views on human nature, the state, society and the economy.

An ability to discuss differing views and tensions within liberal ideology, notably between classical liberalism and modern liberalism

ConservatismKey concepts:

tradition

organic society

hierarchy

authority

property

paternalism

libertarianism

authoritarianism

neoliberalism

neoconservatism

Content explanation

A knowledge of core ideas, doctrines and theories of conservative ideology, particularly as they affect conservative views on human nature, the state, society and the economy.

A knowledge of differing views and tensions within conservative ideology, particularly related to divisions between traditional conservatism and the ‘New Right’

SocialismKey concepts:

co-operation

fraternity

collectivism

social equality

communism

social democracy

social justice

third way

Content explanation

A knowledge of core ideas, doctrines and theories, particularly as they affect socialist views on human nature, the state, society and the economy.

An awareness of differences within socialism, in particular differences between revolutionary and evolutionary socialism and between fundamentalist and revisionism socialism. (Questions will not be set on the features of 20th-century communism alone.)

Liberalism questions

15-markers

Explain the link between liberalism and rationalism (2016)

To what extent have liberals disagreed over freedom? (2015)

Why and how have liberals supported the fragmentation of government power? (2014)

On what grounds have modern liberals defended the principle of social welfare? (2014)

45-markers

To what extent have liberals endorsed the principle of equality? (2015)

To what extent are liberals divided over the role of the state? (2014)

Socialism questions

15-markers

How and why have socialists supported collectivism? (2016)

How far do Marxists and anarchists disagree over the role of the state? (2016)

Why have some socialists supported an ‘evolutionary road to socialism’? (2016)

Why have some socialists supported a revolutionary ‘road’ to socialism? (2015)

Why has social class played such an important role in socialist analysis? (2014)

45-markers

‘Socialism is defined by its commitment to collectivism.’ Discuss. (2015)

To what extent have socialists disagreed over the means of achieving socialism? (2014)

Conservatism questions

15-markers

On what grounds do conservatives justify social hierarchy? (2016)

How do traditional conservatives and the liberal New Right differ in their views of society? (2015)

On what grounds have conservatives defended authority? (2014)

45-markers

‘There is more that unites the New Right than divides it.’ Discuss. (2016)

To what extent is conservatism a philosophy of human imperfection? (2015)

‘Conservatism is defined by its support for free market capitalism.’ Discuss (2014)

In dealing with the questions, first group them. Liberal questions will be about freedom or equality or the differences between classical and modern liberals or the powers of government. After you have grouped them, answer the questions in bullet-pointed lists, making sure you PEE (Point, Evidence Explanation/ Amplification).

Economic performance. The Tories have traditionally been the party of strong economic governance, largely because they are the party of the rich. Believing in hierarchy, and also that an individual should be able to keep whatever wealth they have earned (or inherited), Tory policy will promote company profits and individual wealth. The Tories recently have been banging the austerity drum: we need to be very sensible and stop spending so much; we need to balance our budget. They have blamed Labour for crippling government expenditure. Labour has been seen as the party of government expenditure – increasing spending on the welfare state, and so on. Labour will put taxes up. Let’s take the last election as an example. Labour proposed raising corporation tax from 19% to 26%; the Tories were aghast (they proposed lowering it to 17%). The national media was pretty negative about this. Here’s a good example from Cityam – a newspaper for business-types. ‘Labour has revealed dramatic plans to hike corporation tax as part of a bid to raise cash for a schools spending spree.’ Notice the use of language here: ‘dramatic’, ‘hike’, ‘schools spending spree’. The message is clearly ‘Labour is going to cripple business so that it can spend money like water.’ The fact that Labour’s 26% is not even as high as the USA’s, and is really only as high as some of our European neighbours, seemed to escape the media. Because Labour is the party of expenditure, it has been portrayed yet again as financially incompetent. That was behind a large part of the vote.

Partisanship. Traditionally, you voted the way your parents, and everyone else in your community, did. It’s a bit like supporting a football team. That was an explanation for the dominance of the Conservative and Labour Parties. This declined, and, either as a cause or correlation, new parties sprang up, with clear policy bases: the SNP or Plaid Cymru – (left-wing) nationalist -, the Greens, UKIP. Partisanship, though, can also mean identification with particular policy areas or issues – so, for example, the SNP’s vote went up when it came out with support for the NHS, and so on: it managed to combine its tradition Scottish identity with a protest at the British government eroding public services. People do vote according to policy. This can be seen in the New Labour victory of 1997: the Labour Party fought its reputation for financial incompetence and promoted centrist economic policies; almost immediately, a load of the liberal middle classes voted Labour. Partisanship here is connected to economic competence! Brexit has been a hugely partisan issue: many people mistakenly voted Labour in protest against Brexit, forgetting that Corbyn has Brexit tendencies himself…

Leadership images. Hugely, hugely important. Theresa May’s real weak spot is that she’s no public figure: she’s competent, but finds communicating with the public really rather difficult. Cameron was charming, even if he was a straw man. We need look no further than the Sun for how leaders come across – just search Google images for ‘Sun wot one it’. Do not underestimate the media in our perceptions of parties. The Sun is overtly biased, but the BBC indulges in biased reporting occasionally – this piece is very, very subtly biased. I myself had to tell Private Eye off for anti-Green bias. Corbyn has managed to survive being lambasted by all sorts of media for being an out-of-touch dreamer, but Clegg didn’t survive media blasts for being a middle-class intellectual.

The new-look Hawksbox Blog is chiefly for A level students. Here you will find posts on politics, history and other subjects. If you want my previous posts, on a variety of different topics, please click here.

‘Soft power’, coined by Joseph S. Nye, is the power of attraction; hard power is the power of government or a state to coerce or persuade. They can be hard to distinguish, especially since governments have grasped the efficacy of ‘soft’ power and are now using it with ‘hard’ power in a combination that Nye has termed ‘smart’ power.

Hard power is the traditional magazine of powers a state has, viz. military, diplomatic and economic. We could also include ‘political’, slightly more nebulous.An example of the last is the Israeli’s occupation of the West Bank: encouraged by the government, backed by the military, but a citizen-led land-grab. Hard power could be economic sanctions, such as the international ones against apartheid South Africa, Iran and North Korea. These have variable effects – South Africa was effective, but North Korea stumbles on, chiefly because one country will not join the trade embargo.The Iranian sanctions were followed by diplomacy between the West and Iran, and this led to the sanctions being recently lifted.At the moment, the USA is threatening North Korea with the hardest power of all, the military.

Soft power is not centred in the government, but is spread diffusely in civil society.The strength and impressiveness of America can be seen in the number of military bases it has globally, but these are matched by the number of Walmarts globally.In buying American products, such as Coca Cola, from American stores (to use the American word), the consumer is buying into American culture, and, as politics springs from culture, will become receptive to American political ideals.The dominance of American companies over the internet is another example of soft power.China has censored Google precisely because the government recognises the power of soft power:access to Google could, eventually, lead to revolution.The British exercise soft power through their education system – internationally-renowned universities, schools with foreign branches, the British Council.The Chinese have, perhaps inspired by the British Council, started their own soft power unit, the Confucius Institutes, which are all over the world and which promote Chinese culture and language.These are, as everything is in China, funded by the government, but they have no overt political aim. Similarly, the investment in Africa by Chinese companies (whose leaders all belong to the Chinese Communist Party) is also soft power – this investment does not directly involve state politics or economics, but does benefit China as a whole, and not just individual Chinese businesses.

‘Smart’ power is a combination of the two, where the government, either through agencies or through directly encouraging private entities, establishes positive relations that go beyond the healing of antagonism (diplomacy, economic power), and forge something positive that will bind the countries – perhaps establishing complex interdependence.Obama’s intention re. Iran was to have soft power spreading to, eventually, topple the Islamic regime – where hard power has failed for 38 years.Trump has stopped this, and reverted to hard power, and the Iranians have reacted negatively.

Max Weber said that the state is a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory.” That is a – somewhat brutal – definition of internal sovereignty, the power of the government and constitutional system over people within an autonomous territory. To be a state, however, it is necessary to have external sovereignty as well – that is to say, it must be recognised as a state by other states.

Internal sovereignty is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for statehood. There must be a territory, and a fixed population, in order to have a government. That government must be the sole governing body, and there must be no higher authority within the state. The UK’s sovereignty is vested in Parliament: this has the power to make and unmake laws, which the judicial system upholds. However, there are currently states which lack internal sovereignty. Libya is a good example: there are three governments, many militias, one external invading force (Da’esh) and great lawlessness. (This political vacuum is setting Libya up for another military dictatorship.)

External sovereignty is the existence of a state according to international politics – the recognition of its existence, and therefore rights to territorial self-rule, by other countries. The UN is the formal channel through which states are recognised, as it represents the (near-) entirety of the international community. However, UN recognition is the recognition by individual states – Kosovo, for example, is recognised by 111 UN members, but not Serbia. Somaliland declared independence a quarter of a century ago, and certainly has internal sovereignty, but is still unrecognised, although it is gaining international status. Abkhazia is unrecognised, but internally sovereign. And Libya’s government is backed by the UN, but has no internal sovereignty.

Iraq’s internal sovereignty was challenged by the USA and UK in 2003, when they invaded it in order to remove Saddam Hussein; this also necessarily challenged its external sovereignty. It is alleged that Russia has been challenging the USA’s internal sovereignty by interfering in elections. Russia cannot be seen to be challenging its external authority, however. It is the recognition of the state’s autonomy that allows North Korea to stumble on uninvaded. Internal sovereignty can also be challenged by TNCs.

Internal and external sovereignty are distinct, but interdependent: either is a necessary condition for statehood; it takes both for a sufficient condition.

In the Edexcel-approved textbook on political thought, McNaughton describes how liberalism was a product of Reformation protestantism and of the Enlightenment. This is true to a certain extent, but, as Isaiah Berlin reminds us in his essays on liberalism, the Protestant Reformation also brought about Calvinism, which can hardly be said to be liberal.

What McNaughton completely ignores are other traditions that prepared the flowerbeds of liberalism. For the A level course, the first liberal thinker is John Locke. Locke was the son of a lawyer, and he himself was given a good classical education at Westminster and Oxford. We can confidently say, therefore, that he grew up with both the influence of classical works (such as, for example, Plato’s Republic) and the English legal tradition – as well as being interested in contemporary philosophers such as Descartes.Now, the English legal tradition is rather an important element of liberalism. You cannot have a liberal society unless you have the rule of law. (For the rule of law, see this blog post.) Indeed, Locke bases his assumptions about liberal society on society, in its natural state, being bound by ‘natural law’. The rule of law was reiterated, and perhaps established, by Magna Carta in 1215, and successive statutes and events backed this up. The king was not above the law, and certainly not above his lords – look at the ‘abdications’ of Edward II and Richard II. By the mid-16th-century, the king was theoretically part of, and not above, Parliament – a sort of Trinitarian concept: Parliament was the Commons, the Lords and the Monarch, rather like God being the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So by the 17th century, when Charles I was attempting absolute rule, English political and legal thought had the monarch within the rule of law, and acting for his/ her subjects. Sir John Fortescue, a fifteenth-century lawyer, described the kingdom being ruled ‘politicum et regale’, as opposed to the poor old oppressed French, who have a monarch ‘regale’. (The translations are literally ‘politic’ and ‘royal’ – i.e. popular, in the interests of the people, and royal, or absolute.)

“And they differ in that the first king [‘regale’] may rule his people by such laws as he maketh himself. And therfore he may set upon them tailles [taxes] and other impositions, such as he will himself, without their assent. The second king may not rule his people by other laws than such as they assent unto. And therefore he may set upon them no impositions without their own assent.”

It should be quite clear why Charles lost his head: he tried to rule as a ‘regale’ king in a kingdom which was ‘politicum et regale’. This is where Locke comes from – Hobbes too, for that matter. Hobbes is quite clear that a monarch needs to be ‘politicum et regale’ as much as Locke is, but his conclusions are a bit different.

To this English strand of political thought is added Italian scholastic republican thought, which was translated and printed in England in the early 17th century. This, of course, originated from firmly Catholic writers – and so we have to amend McNaughton’s account, and make it more broad and complex: liberalism came about because of Catholic political theorists, English jurists, and then the Reformation and Enlightenment.

‘Have you read the Supreme Court judgment on employment tribunal fees?’ asked Tim over dinner. ‘It’s great – it talks about the rule of law and why people must bring cases.’ Of course, being a leading QC, he may be biased, but it is jolly good reading. I shall quote at length from it; .

A few years ago, in a storm of measures to cut the costs of justice, the Minister of Injustice imposed fees on employment tribunals. That meant that if you wanted to sue your employer, you would have to cough up huge legal fees, whereas before you could get legal aid. The number of employment cases plummeted, such that employment barristers feared for their jobs. But in July the Supreme Court ruled that this went against the ECHR: access to justice is a fundamental civil right; fees restricted access to justice. So now the government has backed down and will charge fees no longer.

The SC said: “The constitutional right of access to the courts is inherent in the rule of law. The importance of the rule of law is not always understood…

“At the heart of the concept of the rule of law is the idea that society is governed by law. Parliament exists primarily in order to make laws for society in this country. Democratic procedures exist primarily in order to ensure that the Parliament which makes those laws includes Members of Parliament who are chosen by the people of this country and are accountable to them. Courts exist in order to ensure that to ensure that the laws made by Parliament, and the common law created by the courts themselves, are applied and enforced. That role includes ensuring that the executive branch of government carries out its functions in accordance with the law. In order for the courts to perform that role, people must in principle have unimpeded access to them. Without such access, laws are liable to become a dead letter, the work done by Parliament may be rendered nugatory [worthless], and the democratic election of Members of Parliament may become a meaningless charade. That is why the courts do not merely provide a public service like any other.”

Wow! Stick that in your exam.

The SC said that a) the results of employment tribunals would not necessarily just affect the people directly involved in the case, but could have an impact on wider society; b) people needed to know that they could seek remedy in courts, because that is fundamental to how our society functions.

Lord Reed continues:

“A Lord Chancellor of a previous generation put the point in a nutshell, in a letter to the Treasury:

‘(i) Justice in this country is something in which all the Queen’s subjects have an interest, whether it be criminal or civil.(ii) The courts are for the benefit of all, whether the individual resorts to them or not.(iii) In the case of the civil courts the citizen benefits from the interpretation of the law by the Judges and from the resolution of disputes, whether between the state and the individual or between individuals.’(a letter written by Lord Gardiner in 1965)

“In English law, the right of access to the courts has long been recognised. The central idea is expressed in chapter 40 of the Magna Carta of 1215 (“Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus aut differemus rectum aut justiciam”), which remains on the statute book in the closing words of chapter 29 of the version issued by Edward I in 1297: ‘We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.'”

And he then quotes Sir Edward Coke (Institutes of the Laws of England, 1642) –

“‘Hereby it appeareth, that Justice must have three qualities, it must be Libera, quia nihil iniquius venali Justitia; Plena, quia Justitia non debet claudicare; & Celeris, quia dilatio est quaedam negatio [Free, because nothing is more iniquitous than saleable justice; full, because justice ought not to limp; and speedy, because delay is in effect a denial]; and then it is both Justice and Right.’

“More than a century later, Blackstone cited Coke in his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769), and stated: “A… right of every [man] is that of applying to the courts of justice for redress of injuries. Since the law is in England the supreme arbiter of every man’s life, liberty, and property, courts of justice must at all times be open to the subject, and the law be duly administered therein.'”

Fees, if imposed, must be affordable to all: these were not, and therefore they were unlawful.